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. 2022 Sep 23:3:958710.
doi: 10.3389/fgwh.2022.958710. eCollection 2022.

The impact of COVID-19 on safe abortion access in Africa: An analysis through a framework of reproductive justice and lens of structural violence

Amanda Tiew  1 , Lucía Berro Pizzarossa  2 , Ibtehal Jastaniah  3 , Ruvani T Jayaweera  4
Affiliations

The impact of COVID-19 on safe abortion access in Africa: An analysis through a framework of reproductive justice and lens of structural violence

Amanda Tiew et al. Front Glob Womens Health. .

Abstract

The SARS-CoV-2 virus causing the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) global pandemic heightened restrictions on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), especially concerning safe abortion access. The African region has been particularly susceptible to the impact of COVID-19 on sexual and reproductive health services. Using a framework of reproductive justice, we interviewed key informants from the Mobilizing Action around Medication Abortion (MAMA) Network regarding the impacts of structural violence and COVID-19 on SRHR programming in Africa, particularly programming on self-managed abortion. We identified themes of lacking infrastructures of support, emergent marginality, and neocolonial funding environments as facets of structural violence within the context of the MAMA Network, as heightened by the COVID-19 global pandemic.

Keywords: COVID-19; Sub-Saharan Africa; abortion; reproductive justice; self-managed abortion; structural violence.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

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